Dev Watercooler: Gearing Up for Legion PvP

Blizzard has posted an lengthy blog on their plans for PvP in Legion. For more information on PvP rewards, check out our Legion PvP Overview:

Player stats are now automatically set in PvP and increased based on your average item level.

In Legion, when players win a Battleground, Skirmish, Arena, or Rated Battleground, they have a chance to receive a piece of gear directly. Furthermore, your first few victories per week in each rated bracket will reward a guaranteed piece of gear, which has its item level increased based on your rating in the bracket.

Gear will not be from PvP currencies and vendors.

Blizzard

In Legion, we’re making some pretty big changes to our PvP systems to make combat against your fellow players more accessible, balanced, and rewarding. Some of the biggest changes we’re making are related to gear—both how it affects your character in PvP, and how it’s awarded. We want to take a bit of time to share with you more of our thoughts on how we arrived at this new PvP gear design and why we think it will create a more enjoyable experience for everyone.

First, we need to share a little high-level philosophy about why we have gear in World of Warcraft. WoW is a game about your character, their adventures in the world of Azeroth, and their growth in power. One of the foundations of the game is being rewarded for your efforts with gear that makes you stronger. WoW offers a wide variety of activities, including quests, dungeons, raiding, and PvP—and while players may find that certain parts of the game appeal most to them, everyone wants to be rewarded fairly for their effort and skill. PvP is no different: players should be rewarded, and their characters should become more powerful, for participating in PvP—and in Legion, we want to reward them in a way that matters not just in PvP, but across all of the game.

We’ve traditionally had different goals for PvP and PvE gear, and how much power it gives you relative to your enemies. For example, in PvE content, it feels good to gain gear and eventually overpower a once-dangerous monster. As players take on more difficult raiding content, it is important that the monsters grow in power and that the gear they drop does too. Over the years, we’ve added a lot of different raid difficulties to accommodate the variety of player types we have. This has resulted in several tiers of gear that make taking on more challenging content feel more rewarding.

In PvP, we want that same feeling of progression, but we have to manage how much stronger you can be compared to your enemies—other players.While a raid boss doesn’t mind when a team of players massively outgears them, it’s a frustrating experience for other players. So, our challenge has been to find a way to allow your character to become stronger through PvP without making your opponents feel like they can’t compete. On top of that, we don’t want to undermine the value of earning gear through other types of gameplay, such as raiding.

We’ve tried a number of solutions in the past. We introduced Resilience in Wrath of the Lich King, and then in Mists, we added PvP Power to the mix as well. In Warlords, PvP gear was given a second PvP item level, and we scaled down gear from non-PvP sources. All of these solutions have worked to some degree, but also made PvP gear needlessly complicated and hindered crossover play. PvP players feel like their gear isn’t useful in PvE circumstances, and vice versa—and when the gear you’ve earned only makes you more powerful in certain situations, these rewards simply feel less rewarding. Going forward, we feel it would be better if the gear awarded in PvE and PvP was just the same. No special item levels. No PvP-specific stats. Playing any part of the game will allow you to get rewards that are meaningful everywhere.

So, assuming we want to reward the same gear in PvE and PvP, how can we handle the conflicting goals we mentioned before? We’re going to have to change what gear means in PvP.

For starters, we have to shrink the power gap that gear creates in PvP. At first, we considered ignoring gear altogether, but it felt counter-intuitive that gear offered no growth in power at all. We also explored an option that involved scaling PvP gear to within a certain item level range, but this was complicated and made the distribution of secondary stats more important than item level. We think it’s important that if a player sees a piece of gear that is an item level upgrade, they will want to equip it.

We ultimately arrived at a solution where we set player stats automatically in PvP and increase those stats based on your average item level. Players would understand that their stats didn’t come from gear, but that the quality of their gear does matter. Currently, we’ve tuned the system such that for every point above item level 800, your stats are increased by 0.1%. This means that someone with item level 900 gear is only 10% stronger than someone with item level 800 gear. For comparison, that’s roughly the same increase that a mere 10 item level increase gives in Warlords of Draenor. This allows us to make getting gear feel good in general, while shrinking the power gap to an acceptable range.

Now that we’ve limited the power gap gear can create in PvP, we can offer great gear rewards on par with the rest of the game—but now we need to address how it’s rewarded. One of the big changes in Legion is that gear will no longer be delivered through PvP currencies and vendors. Of course, we know a lot of players like the predictable nature of buying gear from vendors. They can select exactly the item they want and never receive an item they don’t want. It sounds like a perfect situation, but it is also an emotionally flat, predictable experience. There is no anticipation about what your reward will be. No exhilaration when you get something you want. No disappointment when you get something you don’t. We want to bring that emotional experience to PvP rewards—while still doing our best to minimize the amount of disappointment you experience.

In Legion, when players win a Battleground, Skirmish, Arena, or Rated Battleground, they have a chance to receive a piece of gear directly. Furthermore, your first few victories per week in each rated bracket will reward a guaranteed piece of gear, which has its item level increased based on your rating in the bracket. For both systems, gear works like it does in the rest of Legion. Any time you are awarded gear, it has a chance to have its item level increased further.

We understand that randomness in gearing has been problematic for PvP in the past, but we think that the aforementioned changes to PvP gear resolve the vast majority of the issues we’ve encountered before. In Legion, your primary goal in PvP will be increasing your average item level. Getting (or not getting) that perfectly itemized trinket won’t be something you’ll have to worry about. We also have systems in place to reduce the likelihood you’ll see the same item twice, which will help round out your set of gear. The biggest benefit of reducing the predictability in gearing in PvP is we can offer gear on par with the rest of World of Warcraft’s end-game activities. Not only will it make receiving gear from PvP more exciting and rewarding, but it also makes PvP more attractive to all WoW players.

There’s also been some concern from both PvEers and PvPers that “raiders will just do Arena to get easy gear” and “gladiators will just do Mythic raids to get easy gear.” We feel it’s important to remember how challenging both types of gameplay can be. Downing Mythic bosses and earning Gladiator rating are two of the most difficult accomplishments in our game. We think players who have demonstrated skill at those levels deserve to be rewarded with better gear.

We spent a lot of time thinking about how to improve the PvP gear situation for everyone who loves World of Warcraft. We appreciate hearing your thoughts about these changes, so be sure to post your thoughts in the comments below.

Comments

Comment by KellydaMan

on 2016-05-23T12:18:43-05:00

Nice to see that they are finally rounding out the PvP system, I can't tell you how many times I have come across other players with way better gear, only to get sent running with my tail between my legs. Third :D

Comment by remotettl

on 2016-05-23T12:20:34-05:00

We think players who have demonstrated skill at those levels deserve to be rewarded with better gear.

it just killed the whole sense to pvp in legion :D

Comment by gguga12

on 2016-05-23T12:22:54-05:00

We think players who have demonstrated skill at those levels deserve to be rewarded with better gear.

it just killed the whole sense to pvp in legion :D

Did you read all ?

Comment by Wishblade

on 2016-05-23T12:23:20-05:00

Sounds neat, as a PvP scrub I approve of this. :P

Comment by omedon666

on 2016-05-23T12:24:10-05:00

I think this is more than fair. The point about raid bosses not caring about gear gaps, but other players do is incredibly poignant, and something that only idiots that Blizzard shouldn't try to appease will disagree with or not understand. At the end of the day, everyone needs to feel they have a mechanically fair shake on their first day if you want population in PVP. There should be no mechanically easy kills, there should be no mechanically hopeless fights. This leans toward that, and I approve 100%.

Comment by heart1783

on 2016-05-23T12:25:19-05:00

I absolutley love the sound of these changes im happy and fine with them <3

Comment by kingsy

on 2016-05-23T12:31:38-05:00

I approve of the gear changes in PvP. There is nothing fun about running random bgs and having your ass handed to you multiple times and having people scream at you for not being geared, just so you can gear up enough to MAYBE kill something.

Comment by jaldaan

on 2016-05-23T12:35:45-05:00

Can't wait for the PVPers to keep whining that they won't be able to faceroll casual anymore. :D

Comment by MadafakinRio

on 2016-05-23T12:42:44-05:00

It's a really big change. A huge one. They've changed like almost everything, and I fear that'll fail. They should have changed things slowly, one thing at a time. I hope it plays out well, cuz PvP is the main thing I enjoy in WoW, and I don't want it getting shrekt. It's nice to see they care, at least a little bit.

Comment by Majeur

on 2016-05-23T12:47:09-05:00

This seems interesting, so no more separate pve and pvp gear? So how are trinkets gonna work, what about set bonuses? Trinket procs and sets disabled I suppose as these items only affect by ilvl? Well, let's give it a go since it's here, I just wonder if these fixed stats are somehow going to favor one spec over another.

Comment by Faede

on 2016-05-23T12:50:25-05:00

I am curious if ilvl bonus is only after 800 or if it affects lower leveling brackets too? I.E 80-89. or even the xp off twinkers.

Comment by Dexiled

on 2016-05-23T12:53:14-05:00

Are we sure they are talking about World of Warcraft and not Diablo: The MMO? cause the way gear is lately is annoying to get..... "Hello guys, we heard u hate gear rng. Guess what come Legion u will get even more gear rng".

"We spent a lot of time thinking about how to improve the PvP gear situation for everyone who loves World of Warcraft." and all that time spent this is what they came up with? come blizz fire these old geezers and get some new blood with fresh ideas into the team.....

Comment by turbosac

on 2016-05-23T12:55:04-05:00

I like being weak when I just reach cap level, gearing up and felling powerfull with top gear... this is oriented on pve players that only do casual pvp...

Comment by overthinker

on 2016-05-23T13:11:34-05:00

"Furthermore, your first few victories per week in each rated bracket will reward a guaranteed piece of gear, "

How many is a few? Is it like how Heroic Dungeons are that you get the first dungeon gets some bonus stuff?

Comment by Darkhay

on 2016-05-23T13:31:50-05:00

THIS SOUNDS....PERFECT =D

Comment by silentsaturn

on 2016-05-23T13:48:11-05:00

This actually makes me think I could get into PvP. With the current system, I'd just get roflstomped into the ground over and over. That was never fun to me.

Comment by neoslayyer

on 2016-05-23T13:48:50-05:00

We think players who have demonstrated skill at those levels deserve to be rewarded with better gear.

it just killed the whole sense to pvp in legion :D

You are worse the NSMBC. Taking things out of context much? That whole line you posted has to do with Glad geared PvP players doing "Mythic" raids in Glad gear and "Mythic" Raiders doing Arenas. Seeing how hard it is to down mythic bosses and get full glad gear, they said those players deserve better gear because they achieved the highest difficulty in the game for both PvE and PvP.

How is that some kind of PvP killer in Legion? I await with baited breath for this answer. I think everything sounds fine to me, you?

Comment by JaceofBass

on 2016-05-23T13:58:38-05:00

My biggest concern about this is how PvP/PvE gear will affect each other, if i was to do some arena's before my raid would that gear put me ahead of the rest of my raid team? Once I get back from my raid will my new PvE gear make me stronger then my arena partners? This runs the risk of forcing people into playing content they have little to no interest in, just to stay on par with players that enjoy both types of content. They said that item level scaling will be much less noticeable, hopefully this will cross over well enough for it to not be an issue.

Comment by Zeler

on 2016-05-23T14:09:40-05:00

Can't wait for the PVPers to keep whining that they won't be able to faceroll casual anymore. :D